Zeta Interactive acquires Acxiom Impact for over $50M

Zeta Interactive, the marketing-focused big data and analytics firm that recently acquired the CRM division of eBay Enterprise, today announced it has bought Acxiom Impact, Acxiom‘s marketing automation solution for enterprise marketers. Sources close to the companies tell me the acquisition price was just north of $50 million.

Zeta Interactive, which was co-founded by David Steinberg and former Apple and Pepsi-Cola CEO John Sculley, focuses on data-driven marketing and customer lifecycle management solutions. Acxiom Impact has a similar focus, with an emphasis on one-to-one email and cross-channel marketing tools for the enterprise.

Zeta CEO Steinberg tells me the company wants to use the acquisition to “create a ‘best of both’ marketing technology platform that builds on Zeta‘s core strengths of flexibility, scalability and omni-channel orchestration,” as well as a “best in class”‘ professional services organization.

As part of this acquisition, Zeta and Acxiom also entered into a long-term partnership agreement. Steinberg tells me the company hopes to be able to capitalize on this partnership to enhance its offerings.

“Zeta has a long-standing relationship with Acxiom at the operating unit and corporate levels,” Steinberg told me when I asked about how the acquisition came about. “Zeta had identified Acxiom Impact as an asset that we believed we could operate more effectively than the existing parent company (similar to how we viewed e-Dialog when it was part of eBay). As Acxiom was evaluating its corporate strategy, an opportunity to acquire this business arose. Zeta moved quickly.”

For now, Acxiom Impact will become part of Zeta’s CRM divisions and will continue to operate as it does today. Over time, though, Zeta plans to integrate the two products into a single platform “to provide clients with an even stronger solution that helps them win in an increasingly complex marketing ecosystem.”

This marks Zeta’s tenth acquisition since it was founded in 2007. Last July, the company raised $125 million from Blackstone Group. That was on top of the $70 million it raised back in 2012. The company currently has about 1,300 employees.